Tag: torture

Court Rules That the Government Can Hide Its Own Report on CIA Torture

The government investigated itself—and you’re not allowed to see the results. On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) doesn’t apply to the Senate’s 2012 report on CIA torture programs. The decision blocks off an avenue to find out what’s in the 6,700-page paper, which the CIA has fought to keep under wraps for more than a decade.

The ruling comes after a small victory for transparency. On Friday, defense lawyers at the Guantanamo Bay military tribunal were allowed to release a photo of their defendant handcuffed and nude at a CIA black site in 2004. Defense lawyers have mentioned the existence of disturbing photos from black sites, but because almost all evidence at the Guantanamo trials is classified, they have never been able to release these photos to the public.

Over the weekend, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin canceled military prosecutors’ controversial plea deal for three accused Al Qaeda members. Their cases may go to trial—which would allow lawyers to uncover more evidence related to the CIA torture program.

The Senate investigation had been prompted by past CIA attempts to cover its tracks. After learning that the CIA had destroyed tapes of prisoners being tortured, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence began an investigation into the CIA’s entire interrogation program. (CIA officer Gina Haspel, who helped destroy the tapes and had personally watched torture sessions, later became CIA director during the Trump administration.)

By 2012, staffers had dug up reams of evidence on CIA malfeasance. They reported not only the specific torture methods, but also that the CIA had tortured innocent people (including a mentally challenged man and two of the agency’s own informants), that CIA leaders had lied to the public and Congress about the program, and that much of the intelligence gained under torture was useless or worse.

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How the British were forced to reveal secret files on torture of Kenyan resistance fighters

As the colonial forces were preparing to leave Kenya, in the days leading up to its independence from Britain in 1963, they were given one last order.

Before they left, they took with them crates upon crates of files; the contents of which painted a gruesome picture of the violence and torture they’d inflicted on Kenya’s resistance movement, the Mau Mau.

For decades afterwards, the British government denied the files existed and hid them from the world.

But as a result of the determination of Mau Mau survivors, the truth was eventually forced out. 

“They’re trying to control a narrative, they’re trying to control a perception of how they’re seen,” Kenyan historian Chao Tayiana said.

“There was torture, there was violence and this took place on a mass scale.” 

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Palestinian prisoners endure ‘Guantanamo-like’ conditions in Israeli torture camps: Report

A new report from The Washington Post published on 29 July details Israel’s torture, starvation, and killing of Palestinians in its prison system in a manner resembling the notorious US prison in Guantanamo Bay.

Based on eyewitness accounts from former prisoners and autopsies carried out by Israeli authorities, The Post reports that “One Palestinian inmate died with a ruptured spleen and broken ribs after being beaten by Israeli prison guards. Another met an excruciating end because a chronic condition went untreated. A third screamed for help for hours before dying.”

The three prisoners are among at least 12 Palestinians from the West Bank and Israel to die in Israeli jails since 7 October, according to Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), whose members sat in on the autopsies.

An unknown number of Palestinians abducted by the Israeli military from the Gaza Strip have also died in detention camps outside of Israel’s formal prison system.

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Israeli Officials Hiding Data About Forced Starvation of Gaza Prisoners: Report

Israeli prison officials are concealing information about reductions in food rations for Palestinians held in the Gaza Strip, where detainees—who have also reported horrific abuse including alleged rape and deadly torture—have been deliberately driven “to the point of starvation,” according to a report published Thursday.

Security sources told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the Israel Prison Service (IPS) is intentionally cutting Palestinian prisoners’ caloric intake, a move confirmed by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who called the policy a “deterrent.”

“The Palestinian detainees will receive the minimum rights and the minimum food, and I will ensure that this policy is implemented,” Ben-Gvir, who leads the far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, said Thursday in response to a query from Israel’s Supreme Court.

“There is no starvation, but my policy does call for reducing conditions, including food and calories,” Ben-Gvir added.

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Palestinians released from Israeli torture camps detail ‘nightmare’ conditions

The Israeli army released 33 Palestinian abductees taken captive from Gaza in previous months, Anadolu Agency reported on 21 June, amid continued reports that Israel is subjecting the detainees to severe torture.

“The freed Palestinians were admitted to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital with thin bodies and signs of torture,” said Palestinian medical sources speaking with Anadolu.

The sources added that the detainees were set free in eastern Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

Since the beginning of the Israeli ground invasion in Gaza, Israel has abducted thousands of Palestinian civilians, including women, children, and medical and rescue workers.

Israel has released some, while others remain in Israeli captivity.

One of those released on Thursday was Badr Dahlan, 30, who displayed signs of psychological distress, including bugged eyes and difficulty forming sentences while speaking.

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Palestinians recount torture and sexual abuse in Israeli detention facility

An Israeli military base in southern Israel is holding thousands of Palestinians in detention where mistreatment and torture is rife, according to a new report.

Since 7 October, the Sde Teiman military base has been used to detain roughly 4,000 Palestinians from Gaza, with some staying at the base for three months before release or transfer into Israel’s prison system.

Around 1,200 Palestinians who were at the base have been released back into Gaza after being found to be civilians.

A report by the New York Times (NYT) revealed that although many had been released after being found to be civilians, those people still underwent interrogations that are consistent with practices of torture.

Seven former detainees at the base, and whose detention was verified by the Israeli military for the report, gave accounts describing forms of torture being widespread at the base.

These accusations include repeated beatings during interrogations or for minor infractions, such as peeking under blindfolds or sleeping when not permitted.

Such accounts of beatings were corroborated by Israeli soldiers speaking to NYT, who said that colleagues boasted about beatings, and that at least one person had died as a result of being beaten.

At least 35 Palestinians have died at the base since 7 October, although Israeli officers speaking to NYT at the facility denied the deaths were as a result of abuse.

The officers said that 12 soldiers had been dismissed from the base, some for excessive use of force.

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GUANTÁNAMO PROSECUTORS ACCUSED OF “OUTRAGEOUS” MISCONDUCT FOR TRYING TO USE TORTURE TESTIMONY

IN A PRETRIAL HEARING Tuesday at the Guantánamo Bay military tribunal, Clive Stafford Smith, a lawyer for a potential witness in the war crimes case, accused government prosecutors of “outrageous” misconduct.

During the hearing for the case of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is charged with masterminding the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, Stafford Smith said the government attorneys had failed to release exculpatory information about Nashiri and made false statements in the course of their failure.

Stafford Smith, the lead counsel for Ahmed Rabbani, a former Guantánamo detainee who was tortured by the CIA, made the allegations after being called to the witness stand by Nashiri’s defense team.

Stafford Smith testified that the prosecutors had filed a brief that falsely said Rabbani had not recanted his initial testimony because, Rabbani said, it was made under torture. After raising the omission, Stafford Smith said, he felt it was not getting due attention and took the unusual step of reporting the prosecutors to their state bar associations.

“I’ve never, ever, in 40 years reported someone to the bar before this case,” Stafford Smith said in court. “I don’t like doing that, but I felt I was required to.”

In the court motion last year that set off Stafford Smith’s ethics complaints, the Guantánamo prosecutors said they had no knowledge of Rabbani’s recantation or claims the testimony in question were extracted by torture. (The chief prosecutor’s office declined to comment for this story.)

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Fontana pays nearly $900,000 for ‘psychological torture’ inflicted by police to get false confession

Within hours after Thomas Perez Jr. called police to report his father missing, he found himself in a tiny interrogation room confronted by Fontana detectives determined to extract a confession that he killed his dad.

Perez had told police that his father, 71-year-old Thomas Perez Sr., went out for a walk with the family dog at about 10 p.m. on Aug. 7, 2018. The dog returned within minutes without Perez’s father. Investigators didn’t believe his story, and over the next 17 hours they grilled him to try to get to the “truth.”

According to court records, detectives told Perez that his father was dead, that they had recovered his body and it now “wore a toe tag at the morgue.” They said they had evidence that Perez killed his father and that he should just admit it, records show.

Perez insisted he didn’t remember killing anyone, but detectives allegedly told him that the human mind often tries to suppress troubling memories.

At one point during the interrogation, the investigators even threatened to have his pet Labrador Retriever, Margosha, euthanized as a stray, and brought the dog into the room so he could say goodbye. “OK? Your dog’s now gone, forget about it,” said an investigator.

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Torture, Executions, Babies Left To Die, Sexual Abuse… These Are Israel’s Crimes

Hostages tortured to death. Parents executed in front of their children. Doctors beaten. Babies murdered. Sexual assault weaponised.

No, not Hamas crimes. This is part of an ever-growing list of documented atrocities committed by Israel in the five months since 7 October – quite separate from the carpet bombing of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza and a famine induced by Israel’s obstruction of aid.

Last week, an investigation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz disclosed that some 27 Palestinians seized off Gaza’s streets over the past five months are known to have died during interrogations inside Israel.

Some were denied medical treatment. But most are likely to have been tortured to death.

Three months ago, a Haaretz editorial warned that Israeli jails “must not become execution facilities for Palestinians”.

Israeli TV channels have been excitedly taking viewers on tours of detention centres, showing the appalling conditions Palestinians are kept in, as well as the psychological and physical abuse they are subjected to.

An Israeli judge recently called the makeshift cages in which Palestinians are held “unsuitable for humans”.

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Israel Accused Of Torturing UN Workers To Obtain False Testimony About UNRWA

A recent UNRWA document says its staff report having been tortured while detained by Israeli forces, who pressed them to provide false statements about ties between the agency and Hamas.

“The document said several UNRWA Palestinian staffers had been detained by the Israeli army, and added that the ill-treatment and abuse they said they had experienced included severe physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats of harm to family members,” Reuters reports, saying UNRWA workers “reported having been pressured by Israeli authorities into falsely stating that the agency has Hamas links and that staff took part in the Oct. 7 attacks.” 

This is another one of those stories about Israeli offenses that are so stunning that at first you can mistakenly believe you must not be reading it correctly — especially since the western political-media class haven’t been treating it like the jarring news that it is. If we had anything remotely like an objective news media in the western world, reports that Israel tortured United Nations staff to get them to make false statements against a UN aid agency would be the top story everywhere for days.

Many, including myself, speculated that torture was involved in obtaining the Israeli “intelligence” behind initial claims of UNRWA staff involvement in the October 7 attack when this narrative first surfaced back in January. A senior Israeli official told Axios at the time that Israeli intelligence agencies came upon the information about the UNRWA staffers largely through “interrogations of militants who were arrested during the Oct. 7 attack.” Israel has an extensive history of using torture in its interrogations, and there’s no reason to believe such methods haven’t been used on captured Hamas fighters in recent months — but reports that it was actual UN staff being tortured are something new.

We may be certain that if it was Hamas being accused of torturing workers for international aid agencies in order to extract false confessions, we’d never hear the end of it. To this day unsubstantiated rumors of mass systemic sexual violence on October 7 continue to dominate the headlines resulting in scandalous instances of journalistic malpractice, despite the Israeli spinmeisters behind those reports having a much worse track record than UNRWA in the truth-telling department and UNRWA standing much less to gain than Israel by lying.

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